Cerutti says: "An epigram was usually a short poem composed in elegiac couplets (alternating lines of hexameter and pentameter verse [cf. alternis versibus longiusculis])." But surely Cicero's sense must be castigatory?

Cerutti:And we saw in a public assemply that this man [Sulla], when some bad poet from the crowd had presented him with a little book, merely because he had written an epigram about him in some verses of alternating length, immediately from those things which he was at that time selling, ordered a reward to be paid to him—but on this [one] condition: that he not write anything else afterward.

I would say // dico hoc:Sulla...a man I myself saw at a public meeting, when from out of the crowd a bad poet shoved a little book at him on account of having written an epigram to him, but with every other line just a little too long, immediately after those matters he was promoting* decree he be given a reward, but on the condition that henceforth he would not write anything.

The context seems lacking for that sense, I thought, unless it was immediately obvious to think of Sulla as selling off confiscated property to foreign troops, and he did do that, so maybe that is the intended meaning.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0019%3Atext%3DArch.%3Asection%3D24 wrote:[25] And those brave men, our countrymen, soldiers and country bred men as they were, still being moved by the sweetness of glory, as if they were to some extent partakers of the same renown, showed their approbation of that action with a great shout. Therefore, I suppose, if Archias were not a Roman citizen according to the laws, he could not have contrived to get presented with the freedom of the city by some general! Sulla, when he was giving it to the Spaniards and Gauls, would, I suppose, have refused him if he had asked for it! a man whom we ourselves saw in the public assembly, when a bad poet of the common people had put a book in his hand, because he had made an epigram on him with every other verse too long, immediately ordered some of the things which he was selling at the moment to be given him as a reward, on condition of not writing anything more about him for the future. Would not he who thought the industry of a bad poet still worthy of some reward, have sought out the genius, and excellence, and copiousness in writing of this man?